Movie Reviews: "42"

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: 42


Older moviegoers often complain that they don’t make movies like they used to. But judging from the reviews of 42, a biography of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in baseball, this is a movie made exactly the way they used to.

Robinson’s image in the film, critics say, is virtually faultless. That’s OK with most critics, but hardly all.





Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times suggests that what it boils down to is:

“standard, old-fashioned biography fare … a mostly unexceptional film about an exceptional man.”





Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal calls it “ponderously reverential” and concludes:

“What’s been carefully filtered out of the film as a whole is the tumult and passion of Robinson’s life.”





To Rafer Guzmán of Newsday, the film seems:

“more concerned with burnishing a legend than dramatizing a life.”





Perhaps all that was inevitable, Michael Phillips suggests in the Chicago Tribune. The 42 script, he writes:

“has the tentative air of a project watched very, very closely by Robinson’s survivors.”





On the other hand, A.O. Scott in the New York Times suggests that the film succeeds on its own terms. Director Brian Helgeland, he writes:

“has honorably sacrificed the chance to make a great movie in the interest of making one that is accessible and inspiring. Though not accurate in every particular, the movie mostly succeeds in respecting the facts of history and the personality of its hero, and in reminding audiences why he mattered.”






And, in the end, Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan concludes:

“Robinson’s combination of fortitude, restraint and passion for the game was stunning. You can’t help getting caught up in this story, even as you are wishing the telling was sharper than it is.”

-IMDB News

[MrCleveland]

I could see this film having some Oscar Nominations by next year.

[loaferman]

Originally Posted by JamesG

Movie Reviews: 42




Robinson’s image in the film, critics say, is virtually faultless.

There's a surprise. Typical Hollywood propaganda.

[Vahan]

Originally Posted by loaferman

There's a surprise. Typical Hollywood propaganda.

How is it typical Hollywood propaganda? Robinson was a real American hero. If anything the "virtually faultless" quote sounding like a praise of Robinson, not a downplay.

[Tubehead]

partof it was fmiled in chattanooga .tn were i lived at

[isiahthomas]

I'm gonna wait for this to come to video. Chadwick Boseman who plays Jackie Robinson, only other thing i've seen him in is a couple of episodes on Lincoln Heights tv show. Nicole Beharie who plays his wife is hot. I liked her in The Last Fall movie with Lance Gross. I was surprised to see Harrison Ford in 42. Chadwick said he spoke to Jackie's wife for some advice. I didn't think she was still living.

[Tweety]

I'll catch this one when it hits the movie channels.

One thing that's fun to do with movies is to check out the "Goofs" page at the IMDB entry for the movie. Here's the goofs spotted (so far) in "42"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453562/...ref_=tt_trv_gf


I know several people who have seen the movie and liked it very much, I just have my doubts that any kind of historically accurate movie could be made about anything involving race. "Glory Road" (the supposed story of the 1966 Texas Western basketball team which won the NCAA championship with an all-black starting five) was a joke.

[Vahan]

Originally Posted by Tweety

I'll catch this one when it hits the movie channels.

One thing that's fun to do with movies is to check out the "Goofs" page at the IMDB entry for the movie. Here's the goofs spotted (so far) in "42"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453562/...ref_=tt_trv_gf

I know several people who have seen the movie and liked it very much, I just have my doubts that any kind of historically accurate movie could be made about anything involving race. "Glory Road" (the supposed story of the 1966 Texas Western basketball team which won the NCAA championship with an all-black starting five) was a joke.

Tweety, what does loaferman mean by "Typical Hollywood Propaganda"? The way they praised Robinson as "virtually flawless", doesn't come off as anything odd to me, as Robinson was, in fact, a real American hero.

If they were praising someone who was a strong supporter of socialism or communism (which Robinson was not), then I could see it as "Typical Hollywood Propaganda".